Euro U21 - Pearce angry with 'poor' England players

Stuart Pearce lambasted England's Under-21 players after an embarrassing European Championship plummeted to new lows with a 1-0 defeat to hosts Israel.

Stuart Pearce was disappointed with England Under-21s' display against Israel

The Young Lions headed into their fourth successive tournament riding the crest of a wave, having won nine matches on the bounce without conceding a goal. However, that run was brought to abrupt end, with defeats to Italy, Norway and Israel meaning England will head home on Wednesday morning having failed to muster a single point in Group A.

"I think basically if you don't turn up and work hard enough in any given tournament, you won't get any success and that was typical of today and probably the two games prior to it," Pearce said.

"I honestly don't believe I should be here answering questions on behalf of them."

He added: "They should be here answering questions on why their performances were so poor, to be honest with you.

"I don't think it's my responsibility at this stage to answer for a performance as bad as that. This is the business end of the tournament and we got what we deserved.

"I don't think we deserved to win a game. Credit to the Israelis, they deserved to beat us."

Things have no doubt been made harder this past week by the fact players like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Phil Jones and Danny Welbeck were unavailable to Pearce. Senior team friendlies were deemed more important than the tournament, while there have been suggestions that some of the Under-21 squad would rather have been at the beach.

"I don't think so," Pearce said when asked about that. "I think we've got players here who have not performed. Barring Andre Wisdom, I would say, and his performance tonight - that's why he was made captain and I think he should be captain for the next two years. I think he led by example. I think players didn't bring their form here."

The players may take a large proportion of the blame, but the inquest into England's failings could well see Pearce lose his job. The former international full-back's contract expires at the end of the month but, despite making his desire to stay public, there have been few positive noises from the Football Association.

"It was a real poor performance," Pearce said. "In regard to my future, my mentality has not changed in 10 days, when I spoke to you (the press) and gave you the heads up on what my mentality would be. Results in this tournament have not effected that one iota.

"I've no idea [whether this will impact my chances]. When you look around Europe over six years and see that our team is the only team that has been here four times running. We've lost very few games, bar this tournament, in tournament football over the years and played some very good football over that time, so there's a middle ground somewhere.

"We've not performed in this tournament that's for sure, there might be a multitude of reasons for that. I have to take it on the chin and obviously the players do as well."